Josh Turner says:
“I worked as a Correctional Officer during the summer before my last year as a undergrad. Every few hours, we were to pick a cell at random and check it for contraband. Since it was a pre-release center, we rarely found anything of interest.
“Once, I flipped over a mattress and found three Dinotopia bookmarks and a beautiful picture of an unmanned Skybax. Upon closer examination of the room, I found that the bookmarks had been used to create a really snazzy pen and ink drawing that combined the Tree Town scene with the Skybax over Waterfall City with random dinosaurs and small mammals.
I saw a lot of strange things as a guard, but I never expected to see dinosaurs!”
Thanks, Josh!
9 comments:
I just want to say it seems to me the vast majority of Dinotopia admirers are wholesome, law-abiding citizens.
Perhaps the Utopian world in Dinotopia was a nice escape from the harsh reality of a prison cell for him. That is a great complement to your work!
I would consider the man in this particular correctional facility "corrected."
As an artist, these are the stories you want to hear.
Isn't it odd that these items were contraband for prisoners?
Dinotopia, saving the world one inmate at a time.
That is awesome! And yes I'm sure he's corrected. A lot of artists go through periods in their life that might be better left out of the history books. But it keeps life interesting to hear that Gurney inspires a lot of people. If any of us have ears left to hear it with that is! And I'm sure the prison library was glad to get their bookmarks back. But truth is, they never found the dino centerfold from the Dinotopia book! :)
What an odd and amazing story! So glad that he was able to share that with you!
Art seems to be a big thing in prisons. Not just in the US, but all over the world. I have read of such cases in a couple of Criminological articles I read a couple of years back. Calmness and escape to a world they enjoy can be a good thing sometimes, law abiding or not. Thanks for posting this Mr Gurney.
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